Early Childhood Engineering and Science Inquiry Activities

In this activity, your child will be asked to create a boat that can successfully float while holding 25 pennies.

In this exciting and empowering challenge, your child will construct a bridge using marshmallows and toothpicks!

Reinforce your child’s understanding of the alphabet by helping them construct all of the letters using pipe cleaners.

This two-ingredient dough, sometimes called "moon sand," is a quick and cheap way to let kids explore their senses, build fine motor skills, and play.

Learn all about balance and motion as your child designs a corn maze!

Children will learn all about cause and effect as they experiment with potion-making in this Halloween themed activity.

In this activity, your child will be challenged to make a tower using paper cups.

In this activity, your child will transform an egg into a glowing, bouncy "ball" that they can play with.

In this activity, your child will be challenged to use simple materials to create a catapult for a small, lightweight toy.

Make your own greenhouse - out of a balloon! Your child will learn how greenhouses work as they plant radish seeds and watch them grow.

In this air pressure science experiment with a balloon and a jar, children will use heat to create a partial vacuum and suck a balloon into a jar.

This is a quick, easy science fair project that conveys the idea of density to preschool and early elementary children.

Your preschooler will engage their senses by making a scented pumpkin to decorate your house.

In this fun design challenge, your child will get creative with making structures out of toothpicks and gumdrop candies.

In this science fair project, young children will become aware of and have the opportunity to experience the four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Water, along with soil and light, is a necessary component for plant growth. So what's better for promoting plant growth: tap water, or rain water?

Tin can phones offer something modern versions don't—a fun project to make with a friend, and a dramatic illustration of vibration and sound waves.

In this science fair project, young children discover what happens when two fluids that have different densities get together.

Use popcorn in this tasty experiment to explore the five senses at home with your kindergartener!

Make scented sensory cloud dough. Add it to a sensory table, activity station, or put it in a baggie for extra at-the-park entertainment!

This science project teaches young students about germs, bacteria, and the importance of washing their hands. Students will test what is the best way to wash.

This project explores whether plants can live and grow when "watered" with juice, soda, or milk.

This recipe makes bubbles that not only blow up nice and big, but do tricks and experiments! How do you do it? It's not a secret, it's science!

This project demonstrates the correspondence between the volume of water displaced by a submerged object and the volume of the object displacing it.

In this science fair project, kids observe the expansion of liquids when frozen and determine if some liquids expand more than others in the freezing process.

This classic children's game demonstrates how sound travels through air vs. through a solid.

Show your preschooler how to make a print of a butterfly using her hand as a tool--a great way to stimulate her sense of touch.

Let your kid experiment with textures among fabric and other materials that are smooth, rough, soft, or slippery—and then they'll make a texture book!

This project is a vivid, concrete introduction to the basic but important idea that plants need sunlight and water to grow.

Here's a simple science activity that will help your child better understand how wells bring us water.